An important part of any content marketing strategy for IT businesses is finding and curating content to share with your followers. Followers who are your past and prospective future clients.
If your social media posts are all about you all the time, followers can lose interest and jump ship for another feed that’s going to give them a better variety of information.
By adopting a few smart strategies, you can quickly find great complimentary content to push out that will keep your users engaged and boost your content marketing strategy overall.
How Much Curated Content Should I Use?
There’s no doubt that social media is an important fuel that powers the marketing engine of any small business content strategy and it provides an inexpensive way to drive more leads and sales.
71% of consumers that have a positive experience with a business on social media will recommend them to their friends and family, and 54% of people browsing social media use it to research products and services they plan to buy.
But to make the most of social media, there are certain tricks to posting the right type of content that engages your users and attracts new followers.
For example, you don’t want to turn your social media feed into one big advertisement. Social media takes a little more subtlety if you want to get good results.
Another “rule of the road” is to use curated content, which is simply content that you’ve found from others that is relevant to your followers.
The 5-3-2 Social Media Rule
One of the rules that helps companies understand the type of content to push out on social media is called the 5-3-2 rule. It’s a good one to follow when planning your posts, and says that out of every 10 social media posts:
- 5 posts should be curated content
- 3 posts should be relevant content from you, but not directly selling
- 2 posts should be something personal and non-work related (a “get to know you”)
So, it’s recommended that half of all your social media content be curated from other people.
Sounds like it could take quite a while to find all those posts doesn’t it? That’s why many tech site business owners don’t follow the 5-3-2 rule, and instead just post their own stuff.
But if you know the right ways to find good content, then beefing up your social media by sharing curated posts won’t be such a difficult task and can actually help fill your feed when you’re too busy to put together your own posts.
Tips & Tricks to Great (and Easy) Content Curation for Your MSP
When you’re curating content, you want to make sure you’re not just sending irrelevant posts to your followers in a rush. Curated content is more thoughtful.
Think of it like museum curation. A curator for “The Ultimate Museum of Computers” (we just made that up but would love to visit it!) will be on the lookout for collections of technology from different decades to bring to the museum’s visitors. But they’ll probably bypass a collection of old cars, because it would not be relevant to their focus.
So, think of your tech business site’s focus first. Some IT business owners will focus on cloud services, others are heavy into cybersecurity. You want to start your curation activities by knowing what your particular followers will be interested in and what’s relevant to your business focus.
Once you’ve got that, you’re ready to get started finding great content (or rather… having it find you) using these tips!
Subscribe to Google Keyword Alerts
Get emails with content just waiting for you by having Google do the work. You can create Google alerts on specific keywords and keyword combinations, such as:
- Cybersecurity threats
- Ransomware attacks in Milwaukee
- Microsoft + updates
- “cloud office tips”
You’ll be able to set up the following:
- How often you’d like to receive an alert
- If you want the alert from a specific Google source (news, blogs, books, etc.)
- The region (i.e. country)
- Whether you want only the “best” results or all of them
- The email address to receive the alert
To set up Google Alerts, sign into Google, then go to https://www.google.com/alerts.
Subscribe to RSS Feeds
RSS feeds are news feeds that come from a variety of different sites. Pick the right sites, and you can end up with a flow of curated content to share quickly and that comes right into your RSS reader.
The two important parts of this tip are the RSS Reader and the RSS Feed.
There are several free and paid RSS readers out there that you can use, here are a few of them:
Now, to find the RSS feeds that will be relevant. You can often find them through a simple Google search on “RSS feeds for YOURTOPIC.” You’ll also find some options by searching within the RSS readers.
Here’s a listing of Top Technology RSS Feeds on Feedspot to get you started.
Follow Tech Related Twitter/LinkedIn/Instagram Hashtags
Most of the social media networks now allow you to follow hashtags, which will give you a quick and easy way to both curate and share content right from within the social media app.
You can follow hashtags on:
On Facebook you can’t get a feed of hashtags like on the other sites, but you can search them to bring up posts using that tag.
You’ll want to try both general hashtags (like #cybersecurity) and more detailed hashtags specific to a product you might sell, like (#Office365Tips).
If you’re going after your local market, it won’t hurt to also include some like (#milwaukeetech) to throw in a few local technology related news stories that your followers may be interested in.
Follow Users with Relevant Content
In addition to following certain hashtags, you can also follow other social media accounts that tend to share great things that your followers would like.
For example, if sending inspirational business quotes from time to time is your thing, you might follow an account like Best Quotes of the Day who will give you plenty of sharable content on both Twitter and LinkedIn.
By following the account directly, you can also end up becoming social media friends, and they may return the favor by sharing your posts with their followers (because they need curated content too!).
Use Flipboard to Curate and Share
Flipboard is another great tool you can use to find great content and share it with your users, both in social media posts and through the Flipboard app.
You can access Flipboard via desktop app, web browser, or mobile app and it allows you to create mini digital magazines filled with your desired blogs, websites, and news stories.
One you’ve got your magazine filled with relevant content you can set it to public and share it on social media and in the Flipboard app itself. It’s another cool way to curate great content for your social feeds and have some fun while doing it.
Subscribe to Technology Related Email Newsletters
You can get a lot of great potential content for your followers by subscribing to technology related email newsletters. These are helpful for staying on a schedule as well.
For example, email newsletters typically come on certain days and times and keep a standard schedule so users will know when to expect them. So, if you like to plan your social media posts for the week all at one time, you can time it with an email newsletter or two that are chock full of great curated content.
Here are a few good ones out there that you may want to check out:
Sign Up for a Free Account on PublishThis
If you’re looking for a solution that can help you curate content, manage your social media, and send out a newsletter, then PublishThis will be something you’ll want to try out.
This platform has a limited free version and paid tiers, and it has a curating engine that pulls in automated content from multiple sources.
It’s all about speed by eliminating the need to copy/paste, allowing you to pull their curated content right into your social media posts that you send out from within the same platform.
Create a Local Coalition of Businesses
A great way to add some local content into your social media feed is to create a coalition of non-competing business owners and share each other’s content. While it won’t be tech-related, your local followers will most likely appreciate seeing a relevant local post from time to time and it may be something that keeps them subscribed to your social feed.
A local coalition could look like:
- Your tech business
- A local bakery
- A local pizza parlor
- A local hardware store
- A local mobile phone repair shop
Everyone wins by having local content to curate and cross promoting their fellow local businesses.
Join Relevant LinkedIn Groups
There are multiple LinkedIn Groups that you can join that are technology related and will feed you content from all the other group members. This is another way to have content waiting for you in your social feed that you know is already going to be targeted to technology, cybersecurity, or whichever niche group you choose.
A few technology related groups that you can check out include:
Manage All Your Curated Content in Pocket
Keeping all that curated content organized and in one place is important to making curation as fast and efficient as possible.
Pocket is an app that’s a catchall for all types of content from anywhere on the web. You can save videos, articles, and stories from webpages, apps, and other sources. You can save it from any device and even send content by email to your Pocket account.
It also integrates with over 1500 apps, so it’s the perfect place to store content as you see it in your feeds during the week, then access it when you’re ready to plan your social posts.
Curated Content is an Important Ingredient in Your Social Strategy
Don’t underestimate the benefit of sharing curated content along with your own social posts. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time if you know the right tricks and can add a lot of valuable content to your social feeds.
What’s your favorite source of curated content? Share your tips in the comments!
